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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391267">Statement #0202605: The Nature of Detachment</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sal_TheSaltyPirate/pseuds/Sal_TheSaltyPirate'>Sal_TheSaltyPirate</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dehumanization, Dissociation, Disturbing Themes, Gen, Graphic Description, Not Beta Read, Original Character(s), Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:55:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,335</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391267</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sal_TheSaltyPirate/pseuds/Sal_TheSaltyPirate</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Statement of Salvatore, no surname given, recorded directly from the subject on May 26th,  2020, regarding... the nature of detachment.</p><p>[Stranger Avatarsona statement]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Statement #0202605: The Nature of Detachment</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>PLEASEEE mind the tags!!!!</p><p>It might be milder than I tagged it, but please stay safe anyway.</p><p>Further descriptions of the themes presented in the statement will be at the end notes. Please check them first if you think you should.</p><p>Also. this was not beta read. Hope you enjoy it anyway!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[CLICK]</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>Right— Let’s see. Are you sure you’d prefer to be left alone? If necessary, I believe you have been told these statements can be given in-</p><p>SALVATORE</p><p>Paper. Written. Yes, I know. I would… I would very much prefer to speak. It feels… more real, to say everything aloud, I mean. Does that make sense?</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>If that’s what you’d like...</p><p>[<em>Pause</em>]</p><p>... Very well. Please, give your name, date, subject and… when you are done, you can just click the tape recorder off… here, and come outside. I will give you some privacy.</p><p>[<em>Footsteps. Door opening and closing</em>]</p><p>SALVATORE</p><p>Alright… I am actually going to do this, then… Statement of Salvatore, no surname given, on the 26th of May, 2020, regarding… [<em>chuckle</em>] the nature of detachment.</p><p>SALVATORE (STATEMENT)</p><p>This is not my face. At least, I don’t think it is. I don’t know how it happened, or how to pinpoint that exact moment I stopped being myself. Day after day it becomes easier to let myself fall away and miss the trail that used to go to the real me. I am way more convinced by now that perhaps there was never such thing.</p><p>Starting at the very beginning might be easier. I was born, I grew up, life went on. Perhaps that’s the issue, life <em>went on</em>. I have never been good with time. Managing my schedule, doing things on a deadline— I have always been behind. The last one to get their first kiss, the last one to raise their hand, the last one in every competition. Getting to know people, getting to mingle and to grow as your own person is quite difficult when your life has been programmed around a mistake, and you are always a second late.</p><p>That’s what I assume is, no— <em>was</em> my issue. Everyone passed by my side and kept going. My schoolmates became college graduates and then became professionals. I saw my teachers grow old and grow tired of me and my questions until their interest turned into disinterest and then? Nothing. Not even my parents, that family I thought I had… their voices faded and soon their faces followed. And I was alone, but most importantly? I was nobody. I was late. I was behind.</p><p>Moving out in my early twenties wasn’t a cathartic experience, at least not for me. I believe my parents really enjoyed that day. A bit of… <em>give them some money and never see them again</em>, you know? A relief. While I, on my own, was of as much use as a newborn deer can be without a guide.</p><p>I can’t tell you how much time I spent inside the apartment when I moved in without going outside, but I can assure without hesitation that it wasn’t good. At least, not for my body. My mind… it wasn’t there at the moment. Maybe you would like for me to expand more on that- You see, after being ignored for so long, my whole existence, my mind, was transferred. I was not on command of the body I was in most of the time. Waking, walking, eating, the mere action of breathing; as far as I’m concerned was not something I was doing by myself.</p><p>I was there, on the back of a mind, watching a body that I was supposed to accept as mine, doing the bare minimum everyday and hoping I would react and get us out.</p><p>It didn’t happen, for a while. At least not until we had run out of food, and the fear of the body pushed me into consciousness. I walked outside, I went to the grocery store. It was closed and I was late. I… think I waited outside, until the morning came and they opened. </p><p>Tell me, if you saw someone feeling cold, would you know the exact sensation they are experiencing? Would you know how their hands are aching, when the tip of their fingers are getting bitten by the cold and their lips are cracking, devoid of all moisture and life?</p><p>No. You cannot understand the extent of the true pain someone else is feeling, and when I was back there, tuned out of a reality that was not my own, I couldn’t comprehend the needs of the vessel that everyone swore belonged to me.</p><p>That’s really… it, isn’t it? Understanding and feeling and processing. Even with the excuses I try to give, I know that at the end it was meant to be. Perhaps it was not my fault, perhaps there was a moment in my life when time was right, and I actually had a place. But I missed it. I missed every single second, and I was so <em>tired</em>.</p><p>Being tired was probably the one thing that always remained. When I was in control of the body, or when I was thrown out and away from any resemblance of ownership. Being tired was as much of a constant as it was being late. Tired to feel, tired to wake, tired to sleep. But I was never tired enough.</p><p><br/>At least, I was not tired enough to ignore it.</p><p>It was a small thing, when I first realized it was there. The face I remember had never been perfectly spotless, gods, it was probably a surprise I actually managed to notice something actually different from zits and dots and scars. But it was there. How long had it been there?</p><p>Upon closer inspection, what on first thought seemed like a badly scrubbed stain turned out to be… bigger. I thought it was a scratch, and I couldn’t help picking at it; a grotesque fascination with the straight shape and apparent depth it had making me try to touch with the tip of my nails its edges.</p><p>My nail slipped <em>in</em> the wound, but there was no pain. It was completely bottomless. Endless space that kept going when I tried to push just a little, just a little, just a little bit more, a tiny bit further. Until my knuckle was buried inside my cheek, but there was no tongue, no throat, no mouth.</p><p>I stared at myself in front of the small bathroom mirror for what felt like hours, with my finger buried inside my cheek in a space that couldn’t physically be there, but it was still welcoming me.</p><p>And for the first time in over twenty years? I felt like perhaps that was me. That it was my reason. I was not an outsider because I was late, I just had a different purpose, and it was finally showing itself to me in the small frame of a cheap mirror, under white light, years of regret and a mistake.</p><p>I never felt full like in the first second I found out. I have never felt the same way after that.</p><p>It sickens me, sometimes, because despite all that happiness, what I experienced that moment is now only a fleeting memory. A breeze that teases the full extent of satisfaction and relief I felt. It should be nice to know that it happened to me, that I somehow was chosen to finally become someone, but instead I can only think that I will never get that again.</p><p>The world was made, but I was never meant to figure in its existence. And now I only have the vague memory of an instant when the world wasn't against me.</p><p>… That was not the only time I, well, stuck my finger in my face, as you may have probably guessed by how this is going. I was too curious, and between long days without being aware of my surroundings and the exhaustion that wouldn't let me focus, the thing in my cheek grew before I even realized.</p><p>It never changed its shape. It started like a slit, small but completely straight starting on the side of my face, just under my cheekbone. Like I said, it seemed like just a badly scrubbed stain, but… it had depth. A deep, dark scratch that should've been quite painful when it happened. But it wasn't, and it only kept growing.</p><p>I don't know if it went first over my cheekbone, or perhaps it decided that going down and getting to my jaw was the way to go, but the one thing I am very, very sure of is that it ended in my forehead.</p><p>I saw it when I had all the senses I could hope for back. Staring at myself in the bathroom mirror had become a bit of a hobby when I actually had the chance to get out of bed by myself. There were two unfinished lines on either side of my face, maybe a quarter of an inch deep in their look, that were just about to connect in my forehead.</p><p>It was… mesmerising, to say the least. I wanted to move my head to check how that cut had just gone all over my skull without me realizing, but in that moment, the idea of taking my eyes off of my reflection was nothing short of sacrilegious. And? It started moving.</p><p>The movement was slow. Something I would have missed, had I decided I wanted to waste precious seconds blinking. But it was for sure advancing. I couldn't feel it, but I could see how my skin started to give way.</p><p>You didn't notice that when I got here. None of your lot did, really. But it's there. Like the wrinkle you got in your forehead when you stared for too long, the line just kept growing and, finally? It finished.</p><p>It finished in the middle of my forehead and everything stilled. I didn't know what was supposed to happen when it was done, but I think I was <em>scared</em>. I think I was expecting my face to fall out and to reveal that I was just an empty casket all along. And that seemed like such an horrifying thought at the moment.</p><p>But nothing happened, and the face remained in place and my doubts were not answered. So the only way to proceed was to touch, wasn't it? Driven by that same, unstoppable curiosity and dread that could be considered dooming. </p><p>So I touched it, fearful and hesitant as you would approach a predator even though I felt like and old, shattered vase. And I touched it. I touched my face— the face I had at the moment, and felt its edges, the curves and the dots and the bumps.</p><p>And then I touched the slit, and the world opened before me.</p><p>Maybe 'world' is too broad of a word, too much importance, but it was clarity after years inside of the thickest fog, wandering around without knowledge.</p><p>My fingers buried inside the cut, and this time I didn't stop until my palm touched the edge. There was nothing behind it, but I felt whole. And when I pulled?</p><p>It fell off.</p><p>My face fell off.</p><p>I held my face in my hand and the eyes stayed there. My mouth, my nose, my expressions. I had my face in my hand but I could still see everything, but in the space that was left behind there was nothing, and at the same time, there was everything I ever hoped for.</p><p>I have never been too into anatomy, never had the interest of learning and the information never really stayed in my brain, but even a child would be aware that this was not something meant to happen. There should have been something. A skull, blood, the pulsing of veins, at least my eyes.</p><p>But there was nothing. Nothing coherent, at least. </p><p>You wouldn't be able to comprehend it, and I'm not sure I would be able to even explain how it looks like, but I want to make something clear: I. Was. Empty. And I have always been empty, but this didn'tfeel like <em>that</em>. How else could I have fitted for so long inside of a body, if it hadn't been completely devoid of anything else? It was full of the me I knew I was, but lacking of anything more.</p><p>Since that moment, I think I knew that I was meant to do something else. To be. To become. But never enough. Never to the point of satisfaction.</p><p>Did you know that everyone has the same marks on their faces?</p><p>I didn't know until mine was finished, but afterwards? <em>Every. Single. Person.</em> The waitress that was leaving the fastfood place too early in the morning, the priest behind the panel of the confessional, your assistants when they received me, even you, Archivist.</p><p>My face changed the moment I took it off of my head. My face changed and, to be honest? I think it's never going to be the same. I lost it. But I'm not sad. It was not really mine. This one isn't, either, and with every day that passed the need to snatch  someone else's face grows stronger.</p><p>I came here because I thought that maybe telling you my story would make it feel like it didn't really happen. That perhaps I am delirious and my face is actually my face. But I was wrong, once again. I don't want to stop it.</p><p>I want to reach inside of me and pull out everything that is heaving me down. I want to rip this face off, and change it, and keep changing it, and keep fixing myself until I finally am. Until I get to the right one. </p><p>Someone must have stolen my real face. There's no other explanation. Someone must have it, why else would I be able to see this?</p><p>I must assure you, It's okay, Archivist. Your friends… I don't want their faces. I don't want yours, either. But I can't stop. I can't care, really. Though I hope you can understand it. After all, such is the nature of detachment. </p><p>[CLICK]</p><hr/><p>[CLICK]</p><p>ARCHIVIST</p><p>[<em>Muffled</em>] Mx. Salvatore?</p><p> </p><p>[<em>Door opening</em>]</p><p> </p><p>Mx. Sal— Huh? Salvatore?… Hm. Oh, well. Statement ends?</p><p> </p><p>[CLICK] </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CONTENTS:</p><p>-Constant talk of Dissociation, feeling like you don't own your own body and probably dehumanization</p><p>-Face wounds. Mentions of zits and scars and picking them.</p><p>-Touching face wounds, explicitly burying fingers inside of them</p><p>-General grim ambient due to a depressed narrator.</p><p>If you feel like I should tag something else, please let me know!!!</p><p>anyway this is very self indulgent and I posted this on my bday,,, happy bday to me:) Hope you enjoyed reading.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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